SENIOR WRITER FOR BOOMERPDX

Senior writer is an inside joke, senior moment not so much.

That’s the moment you do something and get asked, “Why did you do that?”

And you don’t have an answer. Or the answer you give doesn’t make sense. Even to you.

That’s when you make up a whole universe to cover your slip, or get help.

You could say I’ve had a senior moment right here since my first post from December of 2012.

I’ll do the math: thirteen years to the month.

Back then, boomerpdx was the help I’d asked for after writing my first blog build-out, deegeesbb.wordpress.com.

It lost that loving feeling.

 

 

I felt like I’d gone as far as I could with a free WordPress platform.

It seemed like the longer I put off changing to self-hosting, the further behind I’d fall.

My enthusiasm was fading.

The writing spirit was wearing thinner with each post until I began feeling different about the time it took write competently.

I wasn’t feeling like myself.

 

 

It was time to nut up or shut up.

So I did what anyone would do, or should do, with downer feelings about something important.

 

 

As a senior writer, time is of the essence.

Skip one day, it becomes two, then three, then who cares.

But that’s not how I’m built, maybe other ‘writers’, just not me.

I believe it would be a better world if more people took the time to gather their thoughts.

Gathering thoughts never happens for some because they can’t focus.

“I’m all over the place in my mind and it never stops.”

 

 

I’ve got SWD, Senior Writer Disease, and like it just fine.

It fits my career path of explaining everything way too much, the way a museum cataloger might do with a new object in the collection.

What is it?

What’s it made of?

What’s it used for?

Who used it?

 

Senior Writer/Cataloger

Along with my trusted sources I look behind the curtain of modern life and write it.

Today compared to yesterday.

This year compared to last year.

This era compared to past eras.

Compare and contrast? Where’s my blue book?

Based on reading, writing, talking, listening, and looking, I can state, with high confidence, that the 1970’s were a peak decade in American history, maybe the top of the top.

Say what you will about the 60’s and the wonder of it all, but remember the 60’s were guided by old guru dudes like Ken Kesey and Timothy Leary, burned out career guys from grad schools who encouraged others to do what they did:

Tune in.

Turn on.

Drop out.

 

 

They forgot to tell the youth they counseled to get their shit together first.

Those people had resources like education, money, and housing to fall back on after the party.

Telling those who had no place to go after tuning in and turning on and dropping out was irresponsible.

 

 

By the seventies the burnouts had burned out, the grifters of the youth scene went pro, and everyone who thought they missed the best time of their life by being too young, copied their gurus and tuned in, turned on, and dropped out.

I dropped out in 1974 by joining the Army. I dropped out in 1978 to get married. It all made perfect sense.

I didn’t get married, and didn’t find an Army career for the next twenty years.

Am I proud of the shot I took in the 70’s?

 

Coming from a family tradition of early marriage, like real early, sub-20 or near it early, I feel pretty good.

My parents got married young and lasted twenty-six years before calling it.

I learned my parents’ divorce would go final on my first wedding day, which neither of them would have attended in New Jersey.

I met the new boyfriend the day before I left town for my future wife.

Turned out I wouldn’t be attending a wedding in New Jersey either. Or Delaware.

Like a bad omen, the calendar had the wrong date.

After thirty-nine years of married life and looking forward to a big anniversary party, my wedding date was 1986, not 1978.

The 70’s were the peak?

Modern Wealth Management calls it the Lost Decade.

 

I’ve really enjoyed taking this little trip back in time, though.

In my mind these last few days, my brothers and I are still young. We’re riding bikes all over town, playing with GI Joes and firecrackers in the drainage ditch, swimming at the YMCA, and playing basketball in the driveway and football in the street with the neighbor kids.

But, alas, I’m not young anymore. But I am wiser, and for that I’m thankful. And that was/is the point of this whole exercise; to find the lessons of the lost decade of the 1970s and take some wisdom away from it.

 

Senior Writer Says Woof, or What?

No matter your age, how old you are, or how old you feel, I have one short line of advice to close with:

This is the day to get started, to take that step, to make that promise to yourself.

Set a new standard and reach it.

Solve a problem you’ve been puzzling over.

Think of things you’ve avoided.

Once you get the hang of it, the world takes on a new look.

Your personal history is more important than ever to your loved ones.

You could write it down, do interpretive dance, or mime it.

Or write it down and skip the ‘what’s wrong with Grandma and Grandpa’ part.

Write it down. Go ahead and get started.

Where to begin? Now we’re talking.

Explaining things in a story is where people stop reading. Maybe you do, too?

Don’t do that.

The best way to keep readers reading is explaining what you need to explain in between action scenes.

Remember the museum cataloger style of ‘what is it, what’s it made of, what’s is used for, who used it?’

Choose an object, any object, put it the car with you and take a drive.

Write about the object along the way.

 

PS:

 

 

PSS: Pity the fool.